Web Sites

1
Web Sites

• Chapter 18

2
Areas of Discussion

• The Internet
• Corporate Web Sites
• Intranets
• Creating and Managing Web Sites
• E-commerce
• Additional Resources

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The Internet

• Global network of computers
• network of networks
• Connects companies, universities, and individuals
  all over the planet

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Internet continued

• History
• 1969 funding from US Department of Defense,
  company called BBN connected computers at
• UCLA
• SRI in Palo Alto
• University of California at Santa Barbara
• University of Utah
• into a single network.

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Internet continued

• Types of Users
• Academicians (researchers at universities)
• Today, virtually anyone and everyone
• Corporate
• Personal

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Internet continued

• NetValue as a Tool
• Flexible
• Run a virtual business, virtual business, manage
  employees, suppliers, and distributors across the
  planet
• Everywhere
• Few places that you cannot access the Internet

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Internet continued

• Strong
• Net was designed during war times and is
  particularly resilient.
• Last mile is most sensitive.
• This includes telecommunications facility that
  connects your Web server or your users to the
  Internet.
• Companies have multiple paths for access to the
  Internet.

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Internet continued

• Powerful
• Facilitates communication and interaction when
  individuals are separated by distance, providing
  a way to share information, exchange ideas in
  real time, converse, and collaborate.

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Internet continued

• Complex
• Many connections

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Internet continued

• What can the web do for your company?
• Increase product, brand, and company recognition
• Provide product information
• Keep your doors open 24 hours a day
• Improve profits with direct sales

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Internet continued

• Bring together a buyer and a seller
• Improve customer service
• Receive more precise and immediate market
  research by tracking customer activity on the Web
• Adjust to changing market conditions almost
  instantaneously

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Internet continued

• The potential advantages to virtually any company
  are almost unlimited.

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Corporate Web Sites

• Faces of corporations
• How easy it is to navigate?
• How much information does it provide?
• How functional and helpful is it?

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Corporate Web Sites

• Generate
• Brand loyalty
• Product awareness
• Sales
• Improved profits
• Primary goal make a profit

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• What are the examples of the old model?
• What are the examples of the new model?

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Intranets

• Companys use intranet sites, sometimes called
  portals for company purposes.
• Convenience
• Ease of use
• Enhanced offerings
• Reduce costs

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Intranets continued

• Uses
• Posting of the companys policy manual
• Payroll information
• Time sheets
• Benefit plan enrollment
• Employee discounts

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Intranets continued

• Uses continued
• Annual budget planning
• T E submissions (travel and expense)
• Job postings
• Requesting supplies
• Company announcements

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Creating and Maintaining Web Sites

• Are you doing business-to-consumer?
• Are you doing business-to-business?
• Questions
• Who are your users?
• What do your users want?
• How do you want your users to contact you?

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Creating and Maintaining Web Sites continued

• Technical considerations
• Infrastructure Issues
• Server size
• Network connection bandwidth
• Cyclical use

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Creating and Maintaining Web Sites continued

• Server Issues
• If the server is going to be functioning as a
  public Web site, you need to make sure that it is
  connected to the Internet and on the public side
  of your firewall.
• If the server is going to be hosting your
  intranet site, it is almost certainly on your own
  premises and needs to be connected to your
  network on the private side of the firewall.

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Creating and Maintaining Web Sites continued

• Server issues continued
• Redundancies of Internet connections, servers,
  and network equipment (firewalls, routers, etc.)
• Serious security issues with any Web site
  (back-end databases)
• Linux/Unix variants and Microsoft Windows IIS
  Server two operating systems

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Creating and Maintaining Web Sites continued

• Server issues continued
• Determine a site name (Register the domain name)
• Match efforts and cost to value you expect to
  obtain from site

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Creating and Maintaining Web Sites continued

• Web Pages and Databases
• Receive queries or updates against your legacy
  databases, so you need tools and utilities to
  marry your state-of-the-art Java Web code with
  your been-around-the block mainframe routines.
• Create good code to optimize performance for Web
  users.

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Creating and Maintaining Web Sites continued

• Content and Function
• Determine content and function based on your
  companys overall goals and their expectations of
  the Web site.
• Consider what your competition is also doing.

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Creating and Maintaining Web Sites continued

• Content and Function continued
• Overall company goals
• What do you want to do with your site?
• Inform
• Entertain
• Sell products or services
• Generate sales leads

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Creating and Maintaining Web Sites continued

• Content and Function continued
• Informing providing information
• brochureware
• Information broadcasting is an ideal use of Web
  pages
• Can be dynamic such as tracking deliveries

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Creating and Maintaining Web Sites continued

• Content and Function continued
• Entertaining games, audio, video
• Online ads at the Web sites
• Generating Leads
• Selling and pre-selling
• Show products/services you offer
• Tell customers what to do if interested

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Creating and Maintaining Web Sites continued

• Content and Function continued
• Sell Products and Services
• What portion do you want to attribute to Web
  site?
• Static versus dynamic web sites
• Cost
• Personnel
• Changes how often

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Creating and Maintaining Web Sites continued

• Design
• Placement
• graphics
• Menu structure
• navigation

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Creating and Maintaining Web Sites continued

• Development
• Internally
• Security concerns
• Need control over entire process
• Outsourced
• Need high level of skill that your employees do
  not have
• Prevent departments from fighting over control

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Creating and Maintaining Web Sites continued

• Hosting
• Hardware
• Staffing
• Cost
• Hosting companies
• Mirrored sites used with very active and very
  critical Web sites
• Disaster recovery
• Response time to various locations

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Creating and Maintaining Web Sites continued

• FTP Sites
• Sites on a server that are provided for customers
  to either get or place data files.
• Sites provide faster throughput than moving files
  via HTTP.

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Creating and Maintaining Web Sites continued

• Domain Names
• Domain Name System (DNS)
• IP address associated with a domain name

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Creating and Maintaining Web Sites continued

• Domain Names
• ICANN Internet Corporation for Assigned Names
  and Numbers
• Internationally organized, non-profit corporation
  that has responsibility for IP address space
  allocation, DNS management, and root server
  system management functions

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Creating and Maintaining Web Sites continued

• Manages and coordinates the DNS to ensure that
  every address is unique and valid.
• Is responsible for accrediting the domain name
  registrars. Accredit means to identify and set
  minimum standards for the performance of
  registration functions.
• You can lock your domain name so that no changes
  can be made to it. It can be unlocked, but it
  requires a multi-step verification process.

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Creating and Maintaining Web Sites continued

• Internet Service Providers (ISPs)
• Speed
• Speed of your line to the ISP and speed of the
  line from your ISP to the NAP
• NAP (Network Access Point) is connection point
  for Tier-1 providers.
• Speed of your internal network infrastructure

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• Factors that affect Web response time
• Hardware
• Software
• Line speed
• Traffic
• Demand
• Web site design

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• Reliability
• Define your tolerance for risk
• How long can your company go without services?
• What would being down cost your company?
• ISP reliability
• Line from your site to the ISP
• Services ISP provides
• Multiple lines to ISP

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• Cost
• Different levels of service speed, distance,
  hosting, design, programming
• Changing ISPs
• Cost and time

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E-Commerce

• IT cares because e-commerce requires
  sophisticated technical operations, including
  elements such as electronic shopping carts,
  credit card authorization and acceptance, and
  online inventory verification.

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E-Commerce continued

• Main Components of E-commerce
• Business-to-Consumer
• Business-to-Business

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E-Commerce continued

• Business-to-Consumer
• Speed and convenience for both parties
• Opportunities to make purchases via Web
• Obtain customer information that can be used in
  the future for sales and marketing plans

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E-Commerce continued

• Business-to-Business
• Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) data and files
  can now be transmitted via Web.
• Savings come from eliminating brick-and-mortar
  offices.
• Savings come from reduced labor normally involved
  in processing customers order.
• Companies can submit RFP via Web.

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E-Commerce continued

• Difficulties in Starting and Implementing
  E-commerce
• Security concerns (scams and hackers)
• Demand (24/7)
• Advertising (getting it noticed and generating
  traffic)
• Staffing (maintaining site)

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E-Commerce continued

• The Value of Selling over the Internet
• Site has to be of a high quality
• Company has to be ready to handle the business
  (computer traffic and product availability)
• Company has to provide adequate security for
  users of your site.

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E-Commerce continued

• Is E-commerce Worth it?
• You need to make customers and potential
  customers aware that you have a site.
• You need to have traditional mechanisms required
  for fulfilling customers request.
• You will be adding e-commerce functionality to
  web site, which is complicated.
• Do you want to be a part of the digital
  economy?
• Millions of consumers are using e-commerce to
  make their purchases.

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E-Commerce continued

• Some Important Elements of an E-commerce Web Site
• Shopping cart
• Payment processing
• Shipping and handling calculations
• Security provisions (SSL)
• Data exchange with other business applications

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Summary Slide

• The Internet
• Corporate Web Sites
• Creating and Maintaining Web Sites
• E-Commerce